Credit Card Junk Mail

pinkpauline34

I know lots of people have their pet hates and mine is junk mail - I loathe it with a passion. Up until now, I haven't been bothered by it and have always been registered with the MPS. However, over the last couple of weeks I have been bombarded with credit card and loan applications which is concerning me. Today, I've received one from Vanquis asking me to apply for a credit card with an APR of 39.9% (yeah, right), an application from loans.co.uk asking me to apply for a loan up to £25k and a credit card application from GE Money. I am sending them to the MPS for investigation but wondered how this could be happening to me.

I discovered late last week my ex was still on my credit file as an Associate, despite me telling Equifax and Experian in 2002 that his details should be removed from my file as we have no financial link - they didn't do this. He has huge debt and has defaulted on just about everything so it's just a thought - the fact that he's been showing as my Associate and applying for just about every credit card on the market, is it possible my name has been dragged into it and placed on a mailing list. I am very careful about always checking boxes to say I don't want any information etc so I know it's not down to me.

Any ideas or advice please?

Many thanks

Pauline

Experian_company_representative

I think you are wise to ask the MPS to investigate this situation as it does sound like something's amiss. It also sounds like you need to ask the CRAs to update your credit report again as from what you say I wonder whether you have been re-linked to your ex since your eariler disassociation request.

pinkpauline34

Thanks James - you are quite right, I have been reassociated although I have now idea how. I have the piece of paper from the 2 CRA's (Equifax and Experian) in 2002 showing that they had updated their file to show the Notice of Disssociation. However, when I saw my latest report last week, there was new entries on their where my file had been searched (without my knowledge or authority) by my ex's mortgage company (Purple Loans!), a 2nd mortage company (First National Home Finance) and Barclaycard. I've never had an association or contact with these companies so I'm very cheesed off that this has happened, especially as we split in 2000.

I contacted Experian and asked them to place a Notice of Disassociation on my file once again - they have confirmed (again) that they have done this, however, I couldn't see any record of it on my file but all references to my ex were removed (except the credit searches). When I contacted them to ask where the infomration was placed within my file, they told me that they don't physically put anything in the file but just remove my ex's details. Being that this has now happened twice, I'm feeling rather nervous and dubious about believing what they tell me.

Is that information correct as I can't run the risk of this happening again?

[Deleted User]

I'm afraid you can only take their word for it. CRA's rely on third parties updating their files, and if you complain that companies are inserting inaccurate or misleading details, they will tell you to approach the companies direct to correct the data. It's as if they are not responsible for their own data. I wonder how they stand with the Data Protection Act. I don't know how they get round this, that they are not responsible. Surely, they should be responsible, and if they are holding wrong information, we should be able to claim compensation. Does anyone have any knowledge on this?

Experian_company_representative

Creating a disassociation means breaking the link, but this doesn't stop a new link being created by a lender in the future and there is nothing the agencies can do to stop this happening. The only way to counter is to check your credit report from time to time which is probably a good idea anyway.

The agencies simply help and enable lenders to share each other's information - it is not the agencies' information. However, the Data Protection Act does make the agencies responsible for taking practicle steps to ensure data is accurate (which they do) and also means that when you query something with them that have to mark the information in question as disputed.